Some outdoor growers start their plants indoors to give them a
headstart before putting plants outside.

If you're growing cannabis outdoors with seeds, you should
wait until a few weeks after the spring equinox to
put your seeds outside. In the northern
hemisphere this means seeds go outside in-or-after April, In the
southern hemisphere seeds go outside
in-or-after October.

For growers starting with cannabis clones, generally you
should wait a few weeks longer than with seeds. Cannabis
clones are more prone to flowering early outdoors than seeds,
so you might want to put your clones out in late Spring or early
Summer. (What
are clones?)

If you live in a cold climate, you must also wait until after
the last frost before putting your plants outside. Freezing temps will
kill cannabis plants. Strain choice is very important. Some strains
flower earlier than others. For outdoor growers in cold
climates, it's important to make sure you grow a strain that
is matched up with your local weather, so that plants are ready for
harvest before temperatures drop.

Vegetative
Stage

The
vegetative stage is one of the most important parts of the
life of your cannabis plant.

The vegetative stage is the growing stage of the plant. When
in veg, cannabis plants grow bigger and taller, growing only
stems and leaves. As a grower, you are able to control the size and
shape of your plants in the vegetative stage using simple
training methods.

During the entire vegetative stage the plant does not
produce buds at all. It only grows stems and leaves. During
the vegetative stage plants tend to grow very fast, especially
when conditions are right.

What keeps cannabis in the vegetative stage?

Short nights keep cannabis plants in the vegetative
stage. You can keep a cannabis plant in the vegetative stage for
basically forever as long as the plant continues to get short nights
(shorter than 1s-12 hours, depending on the strain).

Cannabis
will stay in the vegetative stage as long as the plant gets
short nights (less than 11-12 hours of darkness
each day)

Whether you're growing indoors or outdoors, you must
make sure your cannabis plants get at least 13 hours of light
each day to stay in the vegetative stage. If your plant gets a few long
nights, it may start budding before you want.

The plant can receive as much as 24 hours of light a day while
in the vegetative stage. Many indoor growers provide 18-24
hours of light a day (known as 18-6 or 24-0 light schedules) during the
vegetative stage to encourage faster vegetative growth.

Don't want to worry about light
schedules? For growers that don't want to pay
attention to light schedules, there are auto-flowering
strains of cannabis, which will automatically go
through their whole life in about 3 months no matter what
light schedule is provided. For some growers, an auto-flowering strain
may be more simple than a traditional (photoperiod) strain.

Indoors

Most indoor growers provide 18-24 hours of light a day (known
as 18-6 or 24-0 light schedules). Giving your cannabis plants more
hours of light each day in the flowering stage will encourage
faster growth.

Lingo: When a grower provides 18 hours
of light a day and 6 hours of darkness, this is commonly known as the
18/6 light schedule. For 24 hours a day, this is referred to
as the 24-0 light schedule.

Outdoors

As long as your plant is getting plenty of light a day, your
plant will automatically stay in the vegetative stage from late spring
until late summer. Every strain is a bit different.

Flowering
Stage

Cannabis starts budding when plants get at least 12
hours of uninterrupted darkness each night. After plants start budding,
they must continue to get long dark nights until harvest or they may
revert back to the vegetative stage.

Indoors

Indoors most growers put their plants on a 12-12 schedule to
initiate flowering. Outdoors the plant will naturally start budding in
late summer when nights are growing longer and longer as winter
approaches. Just make sure plants aren't exposed to light during their
dark period!

What is 12-12 Lighting?

The indoor grower will need to artificially induce
flowering/budding in plants by changing the light schedule so the plant
receives only 12 hours of light a day, and 12 hours of uninterrupted
darkness.

Once the plant is changed over to the flowering (12/12) light
schedule, there is generally another 6 weeks-5 months (average 2.5
months) before the plant's buds are ready for harvest.

Outdoors

Outdoor growers wait until their cannabis plants
start naturally flowering on their own, usually after mid-summer when
days start getting shorter than 12 hours.

It's important to make sure plants aren't exposed to light at
night during their dark period, even street lights or spotlights, as
this can prevent cannabis plants from flowering properly.

So indoor growers have a choice to flower their plants
whenever they want... When
is the best time
to start flowering your cannabis indoors?

The real answer is that i's a matter of personal preference
and also depends on what end result you're looking for. There are two
major considerations when choosing the right time to switch to 12/12,
the age of the plant and the height
of the plant:

Age:
Some growers feel that a marijuana plant which has been
grown from seed will not produce as many buds or have enough resin
production if the plant is not given at least 60 days in the vegetative
stage to mature before it's changed over to the flowering stage. This
is not true. many growers initiate flowering soon after germinating a
seed in order to keep plants small and short. This is often called "12-12 from seed." Just
remember, no matter what you do, a young cannabis plant will not start
flowering until it is 2-3 weeks old. Even if you put a seed on a 12-12
schedule from the beginning, it will not start properly budding for
about 3 weeks. When growing with cannabis clones,
age is not an issue and growers can switch directly to
flowering once your clone has established roots. This is because even
though a clone may be small, it's still a 'mature' plant since it is
made of a piece from a mature plant. Rooted clones tend to grow much
faster for the first few weeks than plants grown from seed. In
any case, age is not much of an issue, and you should switch
your light schedule at the time that best fits your needs.

Height:
A general rule is that your marijuana plant will double or
triple in size during the flowering stage from the point where you
first change over the light schedule to 12/12. Some plants will grow
more, some will grow less, but a good rule of thumb is to change your
light schedule over to flowering when your plants have reached half of
their final desired height. Bending, known as "LST" or "low stress
training" can be used to control colas that get too tall. Simply bend
too-tall colas down and away from the center of the plant. Some growers
will even slightly break or "supercrop"
branches to get them to bend at a 90 degree angle. For those
growing in a small space, height may be the primary concern. However,
there are many techniques available to grow a short,bushy weed plant or
basically train your
cannabis plant to grow into any shape you want.

Here's an example of LST to keep a
plant short:

In optimal conditions if height and space is not an issue, you
would probably want to vegetate your cannabis plant for 60 days or more
before switching it over to flowering. This gives your plant
plenty of time to grow big (so you get bigger yields), and allows new
growers to dial in their grow before plants enter the sensitive
flowering stage. In the vegetative stage, it is easy to recover from
problems, but problems are a lot more serious in the flowering stage,
where mistakes can dramatically hurt your final yields.

Giving cannabis plants more time in the vegetative stage, and
taking time to train them to fit
your space, will give you the best final yields.
However, if space is tight, then it's better to switch when the plant
is half the final desired height, or even to just attempt to flower
your cannabis plant straight from seed.

Harvest!

After the vegetative and flowering stage are over, it is time
to harvest your plants!